A number of the posts moving forward will be in the past, like 12-18 months in the past as I begin to catch up with posting and projects.
How not to mow grass? That is an interesting question. I will explain.
I purchased a used riding lawnmower a couple summers ago, it is used so the mower has it’s? shall we say idiosyncrasies? lets just pick one. The emergency or parking brake. I hadn’t had the mower long and only used it a few times that summer. I “parked” the mower, jumped off the seat for something, turned around and watched the mower roll down the hill quickly gaining speed as it conveniently went between two large trees. I will admit that I started to run after the damn thing until I had a thought, those kind of thoughts that pop into your head, those that happen in micro seconds, those lighting fast sequence of thoughts that happen so fast it takes your body an eternity to process what your brain NOW wants you to do? something so totally foreign and after it already committed to do something different? Yeah one of those.
I decided to stop running and witnessed something that rarely happens more than once in a persons life. A riding lawnmower careening down a hill towards a four foot drop off a rock retaining wall, a short hop and a few scrapes towards a cliff with a drop of twenty five feet into the abyss. Oh and a crash into a metal railing.
Right in between two trees. If I was a betting man…….
Final resting place. I’m not going to lie. If it would have went through the railing, I would have taken pictures of the mower from above, and left it where it landed.
After the initial shock wore off of “what just happened” moment I set about doing a field recovery. I had to build a ramp of scrap wood to create a ramp to get over the rock wall.
I used the truck and a bunch of towing and tie down straps to slowly pull the beast up and out.
Well two hours and lots of cussing I finally was able to get the mower to the place you see above. What a pain. What I did learn is, stick a block behind the rear tire before getting off the damn thing.
This is the third summer I have used the mower, and over the course of hard ownership, it has lost its hood, I have zip ties holding various pieces on, bailing wire holding the deck up, and the dullest blades this side of the Mississippi. Those blades don’t cut anymore, they beat the grass in submission. The best $200 I ever spent. And fun to ride! either up a hill or down. Oh when I say “mow” the grass, I am really “mowing” rocks with great abandon.
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